Summon Necromancer (Summonmancer)

Master the Summon Necromancer (Summonmancer) in Diablo II: Resurrected. Learn essential skills like Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery, Amplify Damage, and Corpse Explosion for a powerful minion army.

The Summon Necromancer, or Summonmancer, is a popular build in Diablo II: Resurrected that relies on a powerful army of skeletons and other summoned creatures to deal damage and absorb hits. While effective, it requires significant skill point investment to become truly potent, making it a build often transitioned into later in the game.

Core Skills:

• Raise Skeleton: Max this skill to summon the maximum number of skeletons (8). They serve as both your primary offense and defense, distracting enemies and dealing damage. Available at Level 1.
• Skeleton Mastery: Max this skill to significantly boost the damage and survivability of all your summoned minions, including skeletons and skeleton magi. Available at Level 1.
• Amplify Damage: This curse doubles the damage your skeletons deal by reducing enemy physical resistance by -100%. It's crucial for speeding up kills. While investing more points increases radius and duration, it's often sufficient with +Skills gear. Available at Level 1.
• Corpse Explosion: Once a monster falls, use this skill to detonate its corpse, dealing massive area-of-effect (AoE) damage. This is your primary AoE damage skill, amplified by Amplify Damage. After the core skeleton skills, this should be your next focus. Investing more points increases the AoE radius and Mana cost. Available at Level 30.

Supporting Skills:

• Clay Golem: A tanky minion that can absorb damage and slow enemies on hit. Even with one point and Golem Mastery, it gains significant Life. Available at Level 1.
• Golem Mastery: Increases the Life and effectiveness of your Clay Golem. Invest at least one point. Available at Level 1.
• Summon Resist: Increases the resistances of all your summoned creatures, making them more durable. Available at Level 12.
• Revive: A tertiary summoning skill that allows you to temporarily revive fallen enemies as your own minions. Their efficacy varies by monster type and they have poor pathing. Available at Level 30.
• Skeleton Magi: These summoned creatures deal elemental damage and have ranged attacks. While less powerful than regular skeletons, they can hit physical immunes in Hell difficulty and provide additional bodies. The type summoned is random. Available at Level 24.
• Lower Resist: An advanced curse that boosts the elemental damage of your skeleton magi and other party members' spells. Useful if playing in groups or against physical immunes, but optional for solo play. Available at Level 30.

Mercenary Synergy:

• An Act 2 Offensive mercenary from Nightmare difficulty provides the Might aura, further boosting your minions' damage.
• An Insight runeword polearm on your mercenary provides the Meditation aura, greatly improving your Mana regeneration, allowing for more frequent Corpse Explosions.

Progression Note:

Due to the high skill point investment required for Raise Skeleton and Skeleton Mastery to be effective, many players start with a Bonemancer build and respec into a Summonmancer around Level 35.